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 Ailaros wrote:
Well, to do smash attacks, MCs have to reduce their number of attacks by 50%. Most MCs have more like 3 or 4 attacks, which means that they're doing roughly 2 attacks with smashing. Assuming WS4 (or, as it happens with a bunch of monstrous creatures, worse), that's 1 hit with a smash attack, which still can't roll 1's to wound, and still has to make it through an invul save. You've got only a roughly half chance to lose ONE mutilator. That's not exactly a matter of them getting trashed.

Put another way, something that causes 2x wounds (through ID) but puts down 1/2 as many attacks doesn't actually gain the attacker anything. It's a wash, killing-power-wise.

Furthermore, some monstrous creatures and other baddies are stuck swinging at I1 thanks to wargear. If a squad of mutilators gets into a fight with calgar and the two kill each other simultaneously, I'd think the CSM player was the one who really won that engagement.

In any case, it's not to say that there are NO hard counters, but to say that the existence of a counter invalidates it as a competitive choice is silly. EVERY unit has counters.

And yeah, abaddon with three mutilators in a land raider, while stupid expensive would handle pretty much anything it managed to make it into contact with.

Well, first of all you only halve the Attack Characteristic, so the MC is still hitting all of its bonus attacks (daemon weapon, rage, counter attack, rampage, warp speed, etc.) at S10. I don't have my codex in front of me, but I believe mutilators do not have grenades either, which in my opinion makes them useless.

And on the Death Star unit which is Abaddon, three mutilators and a land raider, at first glance it looks pretty scary but considering that you are paying around 250 points for a land raider that will basically only fire its FULL BS skill lascannon by turn 2 or 3, because you have to move 12" and/or flat out to have them get out by turn 3/4 to maximize profit. Not only that but the LR will also take up a heavy support slot which should be taken up by havocs/oblits! And if you run into a MC, Abaddon will pretty much handle anything short of a Greater Daemon, and the thing is if he would run with his chosen he would at least get a re-roll from the get em boss rule, but since it is 3 models it is like they are just sitting there watching. Granted, if that unit runs into anything else it will completely tear it apart.

And about the decoy thing where you deep strike one at a time behind enemy lines to suck up fire, I believe that Oblits are better suited for that job because you get to shoot any weapon when you deep strike in and then can basically charge in with the powerfist if you survive. Oh, you have AV 14 rear armor? Well I have a twin linked melta.

So the mutilator is basically a one trick pony, while the obliterator is a chameleon.

 Zaki66 wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:
If you're taking a super character (abbadon, kharn, typhus, etc) and you want to put him in a landraider these guys are the perfect bodyguard. It's like getting 6 terminator wounds with any combination of weapons you want that can fit alongside a character in a landraider.

but then you have no champion to take the challenge. They would be a great escort if only they had a character to challenge chumps

Don't think that would matter when Failbbadon is pimping with them....

When you go up against a unit with mutiple chump champions you might say otherwise. A guard blob or beastpack will just tie abby up every round while it slaughters the mutilators. Similarly a fortuned 2++ save or whatnot can tie abby up. Sometimes you want abby to be able to beat down on the squad, you paid 265 points for him. Seeing him do 1 wound every round(killing a 15 point model) is kind of disappointing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
similarly if you are facing GK with their heroic sacrifise, you want to keep abby away from him at all costs. 4+ and he dies.

I took 3 MoN Mutilators with Abbadon in a Landraider this past weekend. They stomped the crap out of some Grey Knight Paladins and strike squads.

They assaulted some paladins, broke them and couldn't pursue since abbadon has terminator armor and then got multi-assaulted by a total of 7 Paladins, 10 GKSS, and a dreadnought with a doomfist. I lost a Mutilator and Abbadon punched the crap out of the Dreadnought (Pens=2 casualties for combat rez) and I broke all of the squads again.

If you take a character with Terminator armor with them, consider breaking him off and charging with the mutilators and the character separately. It's frustrating seeing your opponent flee, auto-rally and assault you back. Against Xenos, you want to be able to run them down (I'm looking at you Necron blobs).

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:
I took 3 MoN Mutilators with Abbadon in a Landraider this past weekend. They stomped the crap out of some Grey Knight Paladins and strike squads.

They assaulted some paladins, broke them and couldn't pursue since abbadon has terminator armor and then got multi-assaulted by a total of 7 Paladins, 10 GKSS, and a dreadnought with a doomfist. I lost a Mutilator and Abbadon punched the crap out of the Dreadnought (Pens=2 casualties for combat rez) and I broke all of the squads again.

If you take a character with Terminator armor with them, consider breaking him off and charging with the mutilators and the character separately. It's frustrating seeing your opponent flee, auto-rally and assault you back. Against Xenos, you want to be able to run them down (I'm looking at you Necron blobs).

Mutilators are slow are purposeful, so they cannot pursue either. Also if they are not joined to a fearless character, they can break and run.

Arent paladins fearless?
I am kind of surprised the GK player didnt have any daemon hammers to woop through your mutialtors. Also how did you only lose 1 mutialtor. If he activated his force weapons that means you only took 1 wound in two rounds of combat against a ton of attacks, even without Daemon hammers I would expect one to fail a few more 2+ saves.

Mutilators are actually not that bad in Apocalypse games.

Precision strike a bunch of individual Mutilators into and behind enemy lines among the artillery and such.

Now they have a big problem on their hands if they are not immediately dealt with.

Trouble is, since they are individuals, each enemy unit can only kill one.

 Chaos Legionnaire wrote:
Mutilators are actually not that bad in Apocalypse games.

Precision strike a bunch of individual Mutilators into and behind enemy lines among the artillery and such.

Now they have a big problem on their hands if thy are not immediately dealt with.

Trouble is, since they are individuals, each enemy unit can only kill one.

That actually sounds very viable. But I feel that other Deep Striking units would do the same thing but better. Combi-weapon Termies for one.

If any of you are planning on using the codex sm book for your chaos army mutilator models could work for centurians if properly based.

This is what I did with my mutilators to save them. Since I had an equal number of mutes and and oblits I just magnetized all their arms and then did an arm swap each = instant doubling of oblits!

3 singular Mutilators can be used in a chaos army to good effeect against Tau because they can absorb a lot of punishment and then if they live, can charge to absorb overwatch, allowing other units to finish their grisly work. So if you have the slots, this can really help protect your troops and assaulters.